Film ReviewsThe Tribe: screaming silence
Aug 13, 2015 Anchorage Press
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The Tribe (Plemya original title) is Director Miroslav Slaboshpitsky's first feature film. The 132-minute film is an astounding leap from his career directing, writing and producing short films. In less than a decade the Ukranian filmmaker has not only flung open cinematic doors for his work, but has also placed himself solidly on stage as an auteur worth seeing and following.
There are many reasons to watch The Tribe but none of them are easy. The Tribe pushes the limits of filmmaking by engaging viewers in a completely different sensory experience. The film tells the story of a group of young men and women at a boarding school for the deaf. Slaboshpitsky successfully places the viewer in the role of a voyeur as he or she can hear all the environmental sounds but unless the viewer knows Russian Sign Language (RSL), he or she is left to interpret the plot and understand the characters directly from their individual characteristics and actions. The film does not contain a single spoken word and has no subtitles whatsoever. At over two hours, The Tribe takes huge risks of losing the viewer and in a blink of an eye dropping the thread of the action-but it succeeds and delivers a complex story that holds the attention of the viewer from beginning to end. The plot is somewhat predictable, but the depth of human emotions more than makes up for it and fills in the gaps to give the viewer direction.
To paraphrase Ludwig Wittgenstein, what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what cannot be said must be passed over in silence. The Tribe is a socially and politically critical film. Slaboshpitsky articulates poverty and corruption, lack of opportunity and moral relativity to speak loudly of social conditions in Ukraine. The plot opens with Grygoriy Fesenko as Serhiy, a new arrival to the school. The Tribe is centered on Serhiy's experience in finding his place in the pecking order of the school and his relationship with Anya, played by Yana Novikova. Every actor superbly delivers "lines" using RSL and the full extent of their bodies to express angst and hopelessness that can't be talked about. The high caliber of acting is incredible because the cast is made up entirely of deaf, non-professional actors.
The world portrayed in The Tribe is brutal and raw. The kids in the school are neglected by society, families and authority figures, consequently their moral compasses are un-calibrated and point to survival at any cost. They have the run of the school and develop a hierarchical system of corruption that mirrors the world outside. Even the school system itself is complicit in the criminal activity that unfolds, from muggings to prostitution. The cruelty with which the characters treat one another is very painful to watch, including the physical pain they cause one another. The type of explicit violence portrayed in The Tribe may remind viewers of the work of Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke in movies like The Piano Teacher. Haneke uses shock to "rape the viewer into independence," that is, to awaken an audience accustomed to being passive into breaking out of its comfort zone to face conditions that apathy helps create. However, unlike Haneke's work, which can come off as a lofty and moralistic, The Tribe allows for seeded convictions that awaken hope even amid tragedy in an almost humbling manner.
In allowing the viewer to interpret the plot, the film becomes as much as about the viewer as it is about the characters, and it is quite possible there will be as many interpretations of The Tribe as there are viewers. The silence in the film is dark and it's easy to interpret the overhanging suicide-grey skies, crumbling infrastructure, kitchen abortions and sex in dirty places as nothing less than hell. But-viewers must watch carefully so not to miss the subtle shifts in morals, the glimpse of love, the search for justice that Slaboshpitsky folds into the silence.
In The Master and Margarita there is a passage in which Woland (Satan) is holding a ball and tells his cohost, Margarita, to ask him for anything. She asks for forgiveness on behalf of a guest who is tortured by her past. Woland irritated by Margarita's request says, "I am talking about Mercy It sometimes unexpectedly and slyly creeps through the narrowest cracks." This is the same kind of mercy that is awakened inThe Tribe.
The Tribe shows at Bear Tooth on Monday, August 17 at 8 p.m., and Thursday, August 20 at 10:30 p.m.
There are many reasons to watch The Tribe but none of them are easy. The Tribe pushes the limits of filmmaking by engaging viewers in a completely different sensory experience. The film tells the story of a group of young men and women at a boarding school for the deaf. Slaboshpitsky successfully places the viewer in the role of a voyeur as he or she can hear all the environmental sounds but unless the viewer knows Russian Sign Language (RSL), he or she is left to interpret the plot and understand the characters directly from their individual characteristics and actions. The film does not contain a single spoken word and has no subtitles whatsoever. At over two hours, The Tribe takes huge risks of losing the viewer and in a blink of an eye dropping the thread of the action-but it succeeds and delivers a complex story that holds the attention of the viewer from beginning to end. The plot is somewhat predictable, but the depth of human emotions more than makes up for it and fills in the gaps to give the viewer direction.
To paraphrase Ludwig Wittgenstein, what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what cannot be said must be passed over in silence. The Tribe is a socially and politically critical film. Slaboshpitsky articulates poverty and corruption, lack of opportunity and moral relativity to speak loudly of social conditions in Ukraine. The plot opens with Grygoriy Fesenko as Serhiy, a new arrival to the school. The Tribe is centered on Serhiy's experience in finding his place in the pecking order of the school and his relationship with Anya, played by Yana Novikova. Every actor superbly delivers "lines" using RSL and the full extent of their bodies to express angst and hopelessness that can't be talked about. The high caliber of acting is incredible because the cast is made up entirely of deaf, non-professional actors.
The world portrayed in The Tribe is brutal and raw. The kids in the school are neglected by society, families and authority figures, consequently their moral compasses are un-calibrated and point to survival at any cost. They have the run of the school and develop a hierarchical system of corruption that mirrors the world outside. Even the school system itself is complicit in the criminal activity that unfolds, from muggings to prostitution. The cruelty with which the characters treat one another is very painful to watch, including the physical pain they cause one another. The type of explicit violence portrayed in The Tribe may remind viewers of the work of Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke in movies like The Piano Teacher. Haneke uses shock to "rape the viewer into independence," that is, to awaken an audience accustomed to being passive into breaking out of its comfort zone to face conditions that apathy helps create. However, unlike Haneke's work, which can come off as a lofty and moralistic, The Tribe allows for seeded convictions that awaken hope even amid tragedy in an almost humbling manner.
In allowing the viewer to interpret the plot, the film becomes as much as about the viewer as it is about the characters, and it is quite possible there will be as many interpretations of The Tribe as there are viewers. The silence in the film is dark and it's easy to interpret the overhanging suicide-grey skies, crumbling infrastructure, kitchen abortions and sex in dirty places as nothing less than hell. But-viewers must watch carefully so not to miss the subtle shifts in morals, the glimpse of love, the search for justice that Slaboshpitsky folds into the silence.
In The Master and Margarita there is a passage in which Woland (Satan) is holding a ball and tells his cohost, Margarita, to ask him for anything. She asks for forgiveness on behalf of a guest who is tortured by her past. Woland irritated by Margarita's request says, "I am talking about Mercy It sometimes unexpectedly and slyly creeps through the narrowest cracks." This is the same kind of mercy that is awakened inThe Tribe.
The Tribe shows at Bear Tooth on Monday, August 17 at 8 p.m., and Thursday, August 20 at 10:30 p.m.